The real Jackfish Lake Trail

The Reality of Jackfish Lake

Jackfish Lake is real! This stunning Northwestern Ontario location inspired The Jackfish Trail Challenge story.

👤 Art Borups Corners 🕒 Oct 21, 2025 💬 0 comments

Where the line between fiction and reality blurs. This is the real Jackfish Lake in Northwestern Ontario—the very setting for our book, The Jackfish Trail Challenge. If you're driving the Trans-Canada Highway, stop in and explore the trails yourself! Photo: Jamie Bell

Northwestern Ontario places from our stories

This summer, our arts collective supported a lot of storytelling activities. Most of those stories transport readers to entirely fictional places. We love building worlds from scratch, but sometimes, a place in the real world is simply too compelling to ignore. We sometimes adapt or place these fictional spaces and challenges around real areas, like Melgund Township, creating a seamless blend of imagination and geography.

This week, we’ve had a few inquiries from readers of The Jackfish Trail Challenge asking if Jackfish Lake is a real place. The answer is an enthusiastic yes!

Jackfish Lake is a beautiful, real location in Northwestern Ontario, situated just a five-minute drive from Borups Corners. We pass by it on our way to and from Winnipeg all the time, and often stop there to take in the sight. The real trail there is a lot smaller than the one in our story, but it was indeed the inspiration for the book.

The real Jackfish Lake is just a short drive west of Borups Corners in Northwestern Ontario. You can actually visit it. Click the image to display it on the map.

Visiting the real Jackfish Lake

Just like in the book, this serene spot sits right on the shore, just off the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 17). It features a few small, rugged trails—perfect for a fictional “challenge” and a real-world break.

For those of you driving the Trans-Canada Highway, you can actually pull in and spend some time where the story takes place! We encourage you to find your own challenge there, and maybe read a few chapters!

In Bookstores Now

The Jackfish Trail Challenge is available in bookstores and outlets now including: Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, Boekholt Boekhandels, Casa del Libro, eBook.de, Everand, Ex Libris, Fable, Fnac, Hugendubel, LaFeltrinelli Internet Bookshop, Librarie E.Leclerc, Librería de Porrúa Hermanos y Cía, Morawa, Osiander, Palace Marketplace, Rakuten Kobo, Smashwords, Thalia, Vivlio and many others.

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Art Borups Corners

Art Borup’s Corners is a northern arts incubator based in Melgund Township, Northwestern Ontario, where community-led creativity, land-based practice, and digital innovation come together. Rooted in the cultural rhythms of the boreal forest and shaped by years of grassroots organizing across Ontario, Manitoba, Nunavut, and Minnesota, Borup’s Corners supports artists, youth, and community members through participatory storytelling, climate-focused projects, and creative entrepreneurship. From wild blueberry walks to immersive exhibitions and applied AI research, our seasonal programs and artist residencies foster connection, skill-building, and self-determined expression—all grounded in place, culture, and care.

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